Trek Near Chiang Mai

Okay. So, after a VERY long busride from the south, I finally arrived in Chiang Mai. I promptly signed up for a trek in the jungle for the next day (a 3 day deal), then spent the rest of the day wandering the city and seeing some sights (which get included later when I do the Chiang Mai post, since there are more than enough pics from a three day trek for me to talk about here)

There were 5 other people on the trek with me, and the guide, making for 7 of us all together. Phase one of our trekking deal: Elphant riding!



That was my elephant, and the guy in the red shirt was our guide.

And below is Rachel (from Ireland) and I catching photos of one another on elephant back (well, in a chair thing for this time around. But it was my first elephant ride, I didn't know any better)



And then there's the closest pic that I have on MY camera of me on the elephant...



Being up high like this, it affords a pretty nice view. Northern Thailand was cooler, and has a lot of hilly/mountainous terrain. This is still in the "avoid the cities and be super touristy" phase of the trip.



Okay, take a look at the elephants below, notice anything a bit different about their skin?



Yup, they're wet. this is because it's a hot day, and they ran across some water while we were out and about on them. Therefore, elephant water fight ensued. AWESOMENESS!!!
The trumpeting noises, the spraying with the trunks, it's all part of the deal (covering the camera so as not to have it die is the tricky bit, especially when a you're on a bunch of critters that can stomp you on a whim playing with tons of water) Definitely fun to be in the middle of.



After all of that fun, it was lunch, then off for a few hours of hiking through some hills, then into rice field territory...



To make it HERE for the night! It was in a Karen village in the hills. The people there were all very nice, and the food was awesome too. We all ended up staying up late playing songs and dancing and just generally enjoying ourselves (the "Chang" song is particularly funny once we all had a bit of the rice whiskey in us...the local far more than us of course).



Definitely a pretty spot. At night it's all lit by candles. There IS electricity, it's just used in certain spots, since they're run on generators. Up here there's a lot of new jungle that the king has been planting. Here we were on the edge of the old, overgrown stuff. Made for some interesting nighttime noises.





The next day, we get to go up and over the bigger hills to get to the next night's "campsite" (some huts out by a river, but nice. Defnitely a tourist area here). See all the ominous clouds? Just a bit of rain that day...



The group: Demado(Singapore) is hidden, David and Emily (France) in the foreground with Chow (our guide, awesomely cool Thai guy), Emmet and Rachel (Ireland) a bit in the back.


So we had a break for lunch at the top. Definitely a nice view.



More mountain hobo territory. I like this.



Lunch in a leaf is always nice. Noodles and rice things are often packaged like this, even in Singapore.



Apparently the river next to the camp site is normally clear, but the rain stirrred it up a bit. We all went for a good swim after a day of hiking.



Next day involved some pretty interesting terrain, and encounters with a lot of bugs and spiders. They've got some cool ones, and some terrifying ones. Still figuring out what this one is...(especially after almost walking right into it)





The final "activity" of the 3 days was a bamboo rafting trip. It's a rickety thing, and they foolishly gave me a bamboo pole to keep us off the edges. Needless to say, I ended up IN the river a lot, but it was a hilarious time. We got to try to tip eachother's rafts a lot, saw a bunch of elephants on the side, got soaking wet... wow. Of course, didn't have my camera with me due to all the water, so I leave you instead with a picture of a water buffalo. Till next time! (yes, the narration is bad on this post, I just wanted to get pictures up)